Endframe: Postured Birches by Dav Thomas

Nigel Morton talks about one of his favourite images

A month they said. A whole month! “That’s a lifetime, not a deadline,” I thought, “I can rattle off a shortlist of my favourite photographs in a few minutes.” Well it's not been as easy as I anticipated. I work on the picture desk of a national newspaper and scan through thousands of images every day. It's hard enough to pick a best image from any given 24 hours; so when I actually stopped to think about it, choosing the greatest picture ever is an impossible task. So if it's not an ultimate all-time fave, then what is it?

There have been several images that have moved me, stayed with me and ultimately go some way to explain why I write this hunched over an iPad inside a small tent under Stanage Edge on a blustery autumn night.

In 1986 I discovered one of the first pictures I really loved, and I mean couldn't stop looking at. It was inside the gatefold sleeve of Iron Maiden's Live After Death album. There was nothing cooler than bassist Steve “Bomber”' Harris, in his stripy spandex, jumping off the drum riser as flames shot out from the eyes of “Eddie”, Maiden’s giant mechanical mascot. I mean, what's not to like? Nothing. But is it suitable “End Frame” material? Not really. That said, I think it probably did plant a creative seed in my teenage mind. Both photography and music are enormously important to me and not just from an artistic point of view. They have been the foundations for bonds of friendship that have lasted a lifetime.

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